The year I turned 51, I wasn’t thinking about getting older. I was thinking about my dad.
Fifty-one was the last birthday he ever celebrated, and as my own birthday got closer, I couldn’t shake the thought that I was about to become the age he never lived past.
When my dad died, I was 24, and 51 seemed old. It felt like an age that belonged to parents, not something I would ever have to think about for myself.
I certainly never imagined that nearly 30 years later, I’d be staring at that number on my birthday cake and feeling emotional about it.
The trips I’ll never forget
Some of my favorite memories with my dad were our trips back to Berlin to visit my grandparents. I was a first-generation American, and every summer we’d go back to Germany.
It was often just the two of us traveling together, and I loved having that time with him. Germany never felt foreign to me. I spoke the language, my grandparents were there, and it felt like another home.
Germany was still divided then, and I remember seeing soldiers carrying machine guns everywhere and the Berlin Wall that cut right through the city with towers and more guns.
I was too young to really understand what was happening, but I was never scared. My dad was with me, and that was enough. Looking back, I realize those trips were some of my happiest memories with him.
After he died, those were the memories I held onto. I missed the airplane rides, hearing German all around me, seeing my grandparents, and having my dad all to myself.
I thought that’s what grief would always feel like: missing my dad and wishing we had one more trip to Berlin together.
The birthday I never expected to dread
No one had ever told me that grief could come back so hard decades later. People warn you about the first birthdays, Father’s Day, or the first Christmas after you lose a parent. Those are hard, and you expect them to be. I wasn’t expecting a birthday almost three decades later to stop me in my tracks.
As that birthday got closer, I found myself thinking less about getting older and more about everything my dad never got to do. He never walked me down the aisle. He never met my husband. He never held my son or my daughter. He never saw me start my own business, write books, speak on stages, see me on TV, or build a career that I love.
For the first time, I stopped thinking about my dad as just my dad. I started thinking about the life he never got to finish.
When I was little, 51 seemed old. At 51, I realized how young it really is. I still had dreams I wanted to chase, places I wanted to travel, and so much life I was looking forward to. That’s when it finally hit me how much life my dad never got to live.
Seeing my dad differently
I’ve since learned I’m not the only one who has felt this. One of my best friends lost her mom when she was in her 40s and her dad in his 50s. Reaching those birthdays brought back grief she thought she’d worked through years earlier. My cousin is 54, and because his father died at 57, he’s finding himself thinking about that birthday more and more.
It’s something people don’t really talk about, but once I mention it, I realize how many people who have experienced it understand what that means.
Today, birthdays don’t bother me the way they used to. If anything, they’ve become a reminder that getting older is a privilege. Every year I get to spend with my husband and my kids is one more year my dad never got.
I’m older now than my dad ever got to be. If turning 51 taught me anything, it’s this: growing older isn’t something to fear. It’s a gift.
My dad never got that gift. I don’t intend to waste mine.
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